State court shoots down appeal in murder of 3-year-old Lancaster County boy

The state Superior Court has denied an appeal by a former Lancaster County man who claimed, essentially, that he was too young to be sentenced to life in prison for murdering a 3-year-old boy.

File art/Pennlive

Jerold Weirich was convicted by a county jury in 2002 of beating one of his girlfriend's sons to death and injuring the boy's younger brother while he was baby-sitting the boys. He received a life prison sentence on his first-degree murder conviction after the jury deadlocked on whether to impose the death penalty.

Weirich, who tried during his trial to blame the death on his live-in girlfriend, was 24 when the boy was killed. He is now 36 and an inmate at the state prison at Graterford.

In his appeal, Weirich argued that the Supreme Court ruling should be enlarged to cover him because at 24 his brain was not fully developed.

The Superior Court declined to do so. The court has taken the same stance in several other rulings on appeals by convicted murderers who committed their crimes when they were between the ages of 18 and 25.

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